


If it was never new, and it never gets old

by beeawolf



Series: Home like the hunter, like the hare [2]
Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Finn is a Good, Folk Songs - Freeform, M/M, Poe Dameron Can Sing, Poe Dameron Is A Mess, Post-Star Wars: The Last Jedi, bb-8 is boppin', bb-8 likes music, bb-8 thinks this beat is dandy, life is hard and full of disappointment but sometimes there's kissing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-21
Updated: 2018-10-21
Packaged: 2019-08-05 13:59:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16368926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beeawolf/pseuds/beeawolf
Summary: Time on Yavin passes slow, slow, slow, like he’s been dropped back into one of those long summers of his childhood, when he’d been too young to fly on his own but too old to be content with messing around on the speeder. The world grows small and sluggish and narrow, sharpens down to small trials.If he can just remember how to play this one chord on his old guitar, for example, then maybe he’s going to be okay, maybe he’s not useless, maybe he’s going to get them out of this after all. Maybe he’s going to be the leader General Organa says he is.





	If it was never new, and it never gets old

**Author's Note:**

> Oh god I don't even know. I have been trying to write this on and off for the past several months and it feels all cobbled together but I have decided that it's as done as I'm willing to...do...so I'm posting it now. Lyrics are made the hell up. Except that "Rebel Heart" is deeply inspired by the Irish rebel ballad of the same name. I am not an expert lyricist, I am not an expert on the star war; please allow me my transgressions.
> 
> Title is from a quote from Inside Llewyn Davis: "If it was never new, and it never gets old, then it's a folk song."
> 
> This takes place in the same universe as every other non-AU Poe fic I've written so it may reference a couple of them, but nothing deviates ridiculously from canon or anything.

Time on Yavin passes slow, slow, slow, like he’s been dropped back into one of those long summers of his childhood, when he’d been too young to fly on his own but too old to be content with messing around on the speeder. The world grows small and sluggish and narrow, sharpens down to small trials.

            If he can just remember how to play this one chord on his old guitar, for example, then maybe he’s going to be okay, maybe he’s not useless, maybe he’s going to get them out of this after all. Maybe he’s going to be the leader General Organa says he is.

            If he can just get his mom’s old A-wing flying again...No, okay, so if he can just replace this one part, and then the next, without the whole blasted thing falling to pieces...

            Or if he can just breathe here, alone in his childhood bedroom, waking up gasping, still feeling restraints cold on his wrists... If he can just breathe through that, if he can just _breathe_ , then... Then, then, then.

            Everything becomes a test. A means of proving to himself, to everyone else, that he’s still capable of being the commander they need, previous slips in rank notwithstanding. That he’s still useful. That he’s still Poe kriffing Dameron, not whatever exhausted mess of a human being it was who spent days and days barely clinging to consciousness on the Falcon.

            But, anyway, the guitar. He finds it while he’s pacing around the house, looking for something to take his mind off the fact that there’s nothing to take his mind off of anything. It’s first and foremost an exercise in venting his frustration – the A-wing isn’t moving any time soon and he’s just found out he has to wait even longer because they don’t have the right parts and so he has to wait until they can _get_ the right parts and that’s going to take forever, and, and, and, and.

            And there’s the little guitar sitting on a stand shoved behind a shelf, horribly out of tune and covered in dust but still, as it turns out, playable, and so Poe sits down on the floor with it and remembers his way slowly through a song or two. And that’s – well, it’s something.

            He carries it around with him sort of absently for the rest of the afternoon, shoving it in the soft case he’d found under the bed and slinging it over his shoulder. Isn’t sure why, feels a little stupid, but nobody asks about it as he and BB-8 make the usual rounds. Checking in with his dad about whatever chores might need doing. Making sure everybody’s settling in okay, making sure everybody’s getting enough to eat, making sure, making sure.

            He does a lot of that, checking in on everyone. Letting them talk if they need to. And a lot of them do. Which is fine, because the least he can do for them is listen and offer a few encouraging words. For whatever reason, for however many times he’s let them down in the past few weeks, they’re still looking to him for help. So he puts on his best Resistance Commander Poe Dameron face and he gives whatever he can.

            He feels Finn watching him when he’s not busy talking to Rose or Rey, but Poe tries not to linger long around him for reasons he doesn’t really feel like examining at the moment. He feels the General’s eyes on him a lot of the time too, the sharpness of her gaze, and studiously pretends not to notice. Stays as professional as he can during their daily meetings to go over what they don’t have, what they need, and how they’re going to get it.

            And when he’s done for the day, when no one else needs anything from him, he goes back to the A-wing sitting quiet and broken in the shed out back. There’s nothing much he can do for the old thing right now. Not until they get those blasted parts. So Poe just sits down beneath its wounded wing, lets himself breathe in the dust-and-oil scent of the shed for a while, dimly aware of BB-8 burbling to himself somewhere behind him. And then – why not – he pulls out the guitar again.

            His hands remember the shapes of the chords even if his brain doesn’t, and BB-8 trills in delight at the sound. Poe has to smile at that, plays a little louder just to watch his droid rock back and forth to the rhythm. Eventually he picks out the tune of an old folk song, something his mom used to sing to him, some pilots’ song, nothing he has to think about too hard. Soon enough the words come spilling out of him too, soft but sure, and BB-8 whirrs in approval.

            “Away away, to brighter skies

            To clearer space and stars

            Away away, my own true friend

            Soon I’ll be where you are.”  


            It’s a simple song, the lyrics easy enough for a child to remember. It’s something he’s heard in bars and at funerals, and, well. That’s the thing, isn’t it, that has his throat closing up on the second verse, his fingers faltering over the strings. BB-8 stills and chirps a question and Poe pauses to swipe the back of his hand across his eyes.

            “It’s okay,” he says, and starts again. Because here it is, another trial: if he can get through this song, if he can just get through this kriffing song...

            “So I won’t weep, no I won’t mourn

            I’ll see you one bright day

            When the battles here are fought and done

            Then I’ll be on my way.”

 

            It goes on from there, depending on the version, but his mom never sang more than that and Poe can’t remember the next few lines. So he just plays the melody a while longer, grins despite his exhaustion when BB-8 begins to beep softly along.

            “I know that one.”

            Poe stops abruptly, wincing at the discordant buzz of the strings under his fingers, and watches Jessika Pava step into the dim light of the shed.

            “Yeah?” he says. “My mom used to sing it.” Hopes that’s explanation enough for his unsteady voice, his strained smile.

            “Yeah,” Jess repeats, coming over to sit down across from him, her back to the wall. She looks as tired as he feels, which brings a twinge of guilt to Poe’s chest – he’s been so focused on trying to help everybody else that he’s hardly paid attention to what’s left of his own squadron. Trusted them to take care of themselves, really, and what kind of a commander does that, what kind of a commander is he?

            “Different lyrics, though,” Jess is saying, and Poe focuses on her. She gazes back at him, smiling. “Play it again,” she tells him, so he traces a sloppy salute and does. This time Jess sings, low and soft and sort of pleasantly out of tune, her eyes closed.

“We winged our way through pitch black skies

Chasing moons and stars

But all those guiding lights were gone

The journey proved too far.”  


            “Cheery,” Poe murmurs, and Jess pauses to throw him a grin before continuing.

“So away away, to brighter skies

To clearer space and stars

When the battles here are fought and won

Then I’ll be where you are.”  


            She stops then and sighs, and Poe lets his hands fall away from the strings, vaguely aware of BB-8’s disappointed beep.

            “It goes on,” Jess says. “I just always liked that part.” She looks Poe up and down, and adds, “So this is what you’ve been up to?”

            Poe raises his eyebrows. “What?”

            “Hiding in sheds and playing funeral songs to your droid. That’s what you’ve been doing?” Jess stretches, leaning back further against the wall. “Can never find you anywhere lately. Which is weird, since it’s your kriffing house.”

            “I’ve been around,” Poe says.

            “Haven’t seen you in two days, Dameron.”

            “I’ve been here,” he insists, setting the guitar back in its case. “Why? You need anything?”

            Jess rolls her eyes. “Don’t do that.”

            “What?”

            “Don’t do the whole...” She raises her hands, lowers her voice mockingly, “’Resistance Commander Poe Dameron’ thing. Don’t make that face at me.”

            Poe’s lips twitch. “What?” he says again. “That’s just my face.”

            “That is not just your face and you know it.”

            “Did you come here to argue with me about my face?”

            Jess shrugs, looks past him at the A-wing. “Came here ’cause I missed your stupid face,” she says. 

            “Oh,” says Poe quietly, and after a moment he gets up to come and sit beside her, comfortably close, their shoulders touching.

            Jess tilts her head to smile at him. “That’s better,” she says, and reaches over to ruffle his hair. “That’s your real face.”

*

            He makes a better effort after that. To be around, to be seen. At Jess’s urging he brings the guitar out one day to where the pilots have taken to having lunch, at the edge of the ranch in the shadow of some temple ruins. Whatever gods were honored here have been long lost to time or colonizers or both, but Poe used to imagine them still around when he was a little kid, when he was off exploring in the jungle where he wasn’t strictly allowed. Used to feel a wildness, a shivering down his spine when he climbed up to the top of what remained of the old temples and looked down at the world below.

              He’d broken his arm doing that once, a couple of years before his mom died.

            (“Poe Dameron,” she’d said in dismay, lifting him in her arms as he sniffled shamelessly. “Do you really have to climb _everything?_ ”

            “I wanted to see everything,” he’d told her tearfully. “From up high.” 

            His mom had shaken her head, but she was smiling. “I’ll take you flying,” she’d told him. “Once that arm’s all better. And then you can get a good look.”

            “Shara,” his dad had protested, somewhere in the background where he was rummaging around for a bacta patch, but Poe had barely heard him. He gazed wonderingly at his mother, tears forgotten for the moment.

             “Can we go really high up?” he’d asked.

            And his mom had smiled, pressed a kiss to the top of his head. “As high up as you want, kid.”)

            “What’re you gonna play us?” Snap asks, and Poe has to blink at him for a few seconds before he processes the question. They’re all lounging in the grass, leaning up against the rocks and ruins. Jess, Snap, Karé, and Iolo. And aside from C’ai and Nien Nunb, that’s – that’s pretty much it. For the fleet. And he tries not to think too much about that.

            “I dunno,” he says, stretching and yawning and going for casual. “BeeBee Ate, what d’you think?”

            BB-8 whirrs at him for a moment, thinking, and then beeps out a melody. Poe laughs. “That one’s kinda...fast,” he says, which is a charitable way to put it – it’s a foot-stomping thing, meant to be half-shouted over a crowd of voices and clinking glasses – but BB-8 just repeats the melody more enthusiastically.

            “Give the droid what he wants,” Karé demands, and Poe sighs, reaching over to free the guitar from its case.

            “All right, all right, so...” His fingers find the chords quick enough, and soon he’s strumming through it, the words following after. He can’t believe he remembers them, can’t even remember where he learned this one. Back in the New Republic Navy, maybe, when they’d all gather for a drink after another pointless, frustrating flight. The lyrics are sharp, quick, and just shy of obscene. Poe forgets a few lines halfway through, but Snap jumps right in with a dramatic flair to his voice that sends Karé into a fit of giggles, and then they’re all stumbling through together and laughing their way to the end.

            “Damn, Dameron,” Iolo says cheerfully. “We should do singalong hour more often.”

*

            “Forgot you even had that,” his dad says, nodding at the guitar perched on a kitchen chair. It’s rare, lately, that they have a moment to talk much, but this morning they’ve managed to find five minutes without a crisis, five minutes by themselves, both of them diving eagerly into a sort of pantomime of normalcy. They’re eating breakfast ranch-hand-early, the light barely risen outside the kitchen window.

            “Where’d you find it?”

            Poe shrugs, foot tapping restlessly under the table. “My room.”

            “Huh,” his dad says, and reaches over to lift the guitar carefully. He plucks each string individually, making a face at the way the first one buzzes, and then starts to play something soft and sweet and distantly familiar to Poe, like something from early childhood, half-remembered.

             He’d gotten his musical inclination from his dad; Kes Dameron liked to joke sometimes that that was all Poe had gotten from him. Something in Poe relaxes now, uncoils, soothed by the repetitive melody, his dad humming along with it. But then Kes puts the guitar back down, and the world comes back into focus.

            “Doesn’t sound half bad,” he says, and Poe nods, quiet. He feels his dad’s eyes sharpen on him, the full focus of the famous Pathfinder’s gaze, analyzing every detail. “You doing all right, kid?” Kes says at last.

            “Yeah, yeah, I’m good.”

            “You’ve been through a whole hell of a lot.”

            “No more’n you and Mom,” Poe says, fiddling with his mug of caf, and Kes snorts.

            “Let’s not compare wars,” he suggests, with a hint of the sort of bitterness that always starts guilt prickling in Poe’s stomach.

            Poe just tips his head in acknowledgment, and they’re both quiet for a little while longer, picking at breakfast scraps.

            “Look, you don’t have to be good, is all I meant,” his dad says at last. “And you sure as hell don’t have to lie to me.”

            “I know that,” Poe says, lifting his eyes. “Sorry. That – isn’t how I meant it.”

            “I know it’s not. Just – listen, I know you don’t wanna hear it, but –”

            “Dad.”

            “—but I worry about you, all right? You keep everything all locked up, like...” Kes trails off, shakes his head.

              _Like your mom_ , is the unspoken ending to that sentence, and it sits heavy between them.

            “Anyway,” Kes says. “You don’t have to have it all together right now. That’s all I wanted to say.”

            “I know,” Poe answers. “Been told that.”

            Kes raises his eyebrows. “Yeah? By who?”

            Finn. Leia. Kalonia. Pava. Even BB-8, for kriff’s sake. It’s embarrassing, really, when he starts to run down the list.

            “Couple people,” Poe says. “I’m working on it.”

            His dad seems to consider this for a moment, studying Poe’s face as though looking for some sort of tell.

            “Well,” he says at last, picking up his own mug of caf, “that’s all you can do.”  

*

            “Starting a band, Commander?” General Organa asks him dryly later that day, glancing at the guitar case slung over his shoulder.

            “Wh—oh. Sure,” Poe says, cracking a hollow smile. “Might improve morale.”

            Her lips twitch in amusement. “Depends on what you sing.”

            “I take requests,” Poe offers, and Leia smiles at him for real now.

            “I’ll hold you to that,” she tells him, and he gives her his very best salute.

*

            It’s Rose Tico who comes to Poe with the next request, finds him sitting outside the shed with the guitar and running through fingerpicking patterns at random. It concerns everyone less than when he paces around looking agitated, but it serves the same purpose, quieting his thoughts just enough to make them manageable. BB-8 is beeping along in slightly discordant accompaniment, and Poe’s just starting to feel halfway toward calm when Rose comes around the corner. 

            “Oh, hey,” she says, hesitant, still a little shy despite the fact that she’d proven herself twelve times over while Poe had been busy discrediting himself in the eyes of the entire Resistance. But there’s no reason to dwell on that. 

            “Hey,” he answers, fingers pausing over the strings. He searches her face, gives her the best smile he can manage. “Everything okay?”

            “Yeah,” Rose says, then sighs, rubs at her forehead. She looks exhausted, but they all are lately. “No. I don’t know. Is that weird?”

            “No,” Poe says firmly. “You wanna talk about it?”

            Rose seems to actually see him then, her eyes focusing. “That’s okay,” she says, quieter. “Thanks, though. What were you playing?”

            “Guitar,” Poe says, holding it up, which earns him an amused eyeroll.

            “I meant what song.”

            Poe gives an exaggerated, “ _Ohhh_ ,” so that she rolls her eyes again and laughs, and then he shrugs. “Nothing, really. Why? Got any requests?”

            A strangely serious expression passes over Rose’s face for a moment, and then she sits down on the broken old speeder perennially parked outside the shed, peering down at him. “Do you know ‘Rebel Heart’?” she asks, too casual.

            Poe blinks back up at her. “Do _you_ know ‘Rebel Heart’?” he says. “That’s a real old one.” Ultra patriotic, too, and only rarely trotted out at the pub where Yavin 4’s not-insignificant population of retired rebels liked to meet.

             (“People like their peace,” Kes had explained to Poe once, when he was younger. “They don’t want to talk so much about fighting the good fight, all that stuff. Not when they’ve lived through it.”

            Poe hadn’t really gotten it at the time. Songs about fighting the good fight were a lot more exciting to a kid than the more popular songs about long lost loves and/or ships.)

            Rose shrugs, fiddling with her necklace. “On Hays Minor you could get killed for singing old rebel songs,” she says, as though this is simply a vaguely interesting fact and not something that might make Poe’s stomach turn. “So, obviously we all knew them.”

             “Obviously,” Poe agrees, watching the glint of Rose’s pendant, trying not to think too hard about where he’d seen nearly this exact sight before (in briefings, in the mess hall on D’Qar, in the hangar, in another life). He shifts the guitar, plucks resentfully at the one string that keeps buzzing no matter what he does. “Okay, yeah, I know that one. Just, give me one sec –”

            It takes him slightly longer than that to work out the chords, and he needs a little help from BB-8 – but once he’s got it, he’s _got_ it, and Rose sits up straight, smiling wider than he’s ever seen.

            “Oh, I was born with rebel blood, burning to be free,” Poe starts, and tips his head toward Rose, grinning when she joins in.  
  
            “It called me to the stars above,  
            This rebel heart in me.”

            He’d always liked this one, the comforting cadence of it. He used to hum it when he was working on something, tedious X-wing maintenance or reports, anything mind-numbing enough that it needed a soundtrack. He’d hummed it to himself on the Finalizer, actually, before the whole torture thing. He’d...sort of forgotten about that.

            “Rebel heart, oh rebel heart  
            Singing liberty...”

            They’d wrestled him into that stupid chair and pinned his wrists and ankles and he’d waited for so _long_ like that, helpless and alone in the dark. Long enough that the song had come drifting out of him in a quiet, hoarse hum. He’d even kept it up for the interrogation droid, as a sort of joke with himself. Until he couldn’t anymore.  

            “No grief or pain, no whip or chain  
            Could take that song from me.”

            Poe falters, strikes a note or two wrong, almost loses his place entirely to the growing tightness in his chest. But Rose launches so enthusiastically into the next part that he can’t help but be drawn along with her.

“From distant shores to desert skies  
I learned what freedom cost  
I sang a thousand deathless songs  
To carry what I’d lost.”

            He’s vaguely aware of footsteps approaching as they run back through the chorus again, but he and Rose are on a roll here and he doesn’t want to let her down – kriff, she’s Paige’s kid _sister_ , he can’t bear to let her down. Worst case scenario it’s the General, and then he can just tell her that he’s helping to revive important Rebellion history. Or something. And anyway, this is his favorite part, the whole ending bit, and he’s not gonna not sing his favorite part.   
  
            “I’ve traveled now through deepest dark  
            I’ve seen worlds lit aflame  
            Still in my heart this rebel blood  
            Keeps burning just the same

            Rebel heart, oh rebel heart  
            Singing liberty  
            Oh, I was born with rebel blood  
            Burning to be free.”

            Poe adds an extra dramatic flourish to the end for no reason except maybe to try and make Rose smile, because Force knows she deserves some cheering.

            And then he looks up to see Finn and Rey blinking back at him, lingering like they’re not sure if they’ve been invited to this particular performance. Rey looks – curious, more than anything, and Finn... Finn is looking from Poe to Rose and back again, eyebrows knit like he’s trying to work something out.

            “Oh, hey,” Poe says, his chest tightening again. “You guys missed the singalong.”

            “It was very good,” Rey says, and Poe opens his mouth to let out some dumb joke before he realizes she’s being sincere.

            “Rose is a talent,” he agrees, and pretends not to notice the blush that this causes.

            “That’s why I need her,” Rey says brightly. “Can you lend me a hand with the Falcon again?”

            “Sure,” Rose says, hopping to her feet and looking – hell, looking happy. Poe can’t help but smile after the two of them as they walk away, chattering about the sort of mechanic-type stuff Pava would find endlessly fascinating. BB-8 swivels his dome to look at Rey, then at Poe, then back to Rey again, and Poe laughs.

            “Go ahead, buddy. Have fun and –”

            [Be good,] BB-8 finishes in a pointed set of beeps before rolling off, and Poe gets the distinct feeling that he’s the one being given a directive.

            When he looks back, Finn’s standing there watching him with a funny expression.

            “How’s it going, buddy?” Poe says, casual as he can with his heart skipping a beat and all.

            Finn hesitates, shifting his feet, then says, “I didn’t know you had that.”

            “Music?”

            “No,” Finn says, huffing. “Songs like...that one.”

            “Yeah, no, they’re probably not on the First Order playlist,” Poe replies. “There’s lots of ’em though.”

            Finn looks blankly at him, so Poe backtracks.

            “Rebel songs, I mean. It’s a thing. Genre? You hear them in bars sometimes. They’re not always that...polite.” He shrugs. “My dad says back in the day they mostly just sang for a distraction from how cold and tired and hungry they were.”

            “They don’t really let Stormtroopers sing,” Finn says wryly, “no matter how cold and tired and hungry they are.”

            “Well, it would be sorta hard, wouldn’t it?” Poe says thoughtfully. “With the helmet?”

            Finn gives him an incredulous look, then breaks out into a smile. “It’d be kind of muffled,” he allows. He hesitates again before adding carefully, “I haven’t seen you around too much. Since we landed.”

            “Yeah,” Poe says. “Yeah, I’m sorry, I just –” He stops, rubs at the back of his neck. “I’m sorry,” he repeats. Because what else is there to say? _Yeah, sorry,_ _I’ve just been hiding from you. I’ve been hiding from everyone, but especially you, because you keep on doing this thing where you look right through me and I don’t think I can handle that right now. No hard feelings, buddy!_

            “You don’t need to be sorry,” Finn says, furrowing his brow.

            Poe thinks there’s very little he doesn’t have to be sorry about, but he’s starting to figure out that arguing with Finn is a losing battle.

             “D’you know ‘Pilot True?’” he blurts out instead. Because he remembers, now, the song his dad was playing, with such abrupt clarity that his fingers itch to play it too. Like his mind had just gone digging for some distraction, any distraction.

            Finn frowns at him. “Is that another rebel song?”

            “Sort of? I think it’s older. It’s a...it’s more like a pilot song, so I thought maybe...”  

            “I don’t think so,” Finn says, giving him a curious look now. Indulgent, really, like he wants to see where exactly Poe’s going with this one.

            “It’s good,” Poe assures him. “Here –” He picks up the guitar again, has to fumble with it for a few wrong notes before he gets to the ones he means.

            “I once knew a pilot true  
            Come from the stars above  
            She dressed all in the finest blue  
            To match the skies she loved.”

            He ventures a glance at Finn, who’s watching him with a complicated expression, like he doesn’t know quite what to make of Poe, which is fine because Poe also doesn’t know quite what to make of himself right now.

            “Born out in the deepest dark,  
            Her eyes the only light,  
            She took her place among the stars  
            And never feared a fight.

            Her ship shone like a comet’s tail  
            Outpaced the fiercest foe  
            The bravest bird in the galaxy   
            For the bravest girl I know.”

            Finn’s smiling now, something soft in his eyes, and Poe chances a grin back before he goes on.  
  
            “But one day that faithful ship went down  
            Torn from wing to wing  
            When they caught her in the sorry wreck   
            They heard her laugh and sing:

            ‘I was born among the stars,  
            and among them I will roam  
            You can take me from the skies above  
            But you cannot take my home.’”

            There’s an instrumental bit here, just enough space for Poe to catch his breath, swallow down the lump in his throat. It’s a sad song, really, and how had he not remembered that? But it’s not like he can stop now; he can’t just – just give up on it. He doesn’t look at Finn again as he picks up the last couple of verses.

            “My pilot true, all dressed in blue  
            They weighed her down in chains  
            Still her eyes stayed on the skies above  
            Through all her deep-dark pains.  
  
            She sang,

            ‘I was born among the stars  
            And to stars I will return  
            You can hold me here, but in my blood  
            That light will always burn.’”

            When he looks up, the smile’s fallen from Finn’s face, and his eyes have darkened.

            “Sorry,” Poe says, still gripping the guitar. His heart is pounding for some reason, his mind scrambling to lock out this wave of emotion he doesn’t quite understand. “I forgot it was sad.”

            “Are they,” Finn starts, and then stops, just gazing at Poe, like he can’t figure out the words he wants. “Are they all like that?” he asks finally. There’s something thick in his voice, but Poe can’t identify what it is. “Like...do they all talk about burning blood, and chains and things, or...”

            “No,” Poe says, and it comes out half a laugh. He kneels down to put the guitar back in its case, swinging it back around his shoulder as he straightens up to face Finn. “I just keep picking the real morbid ones.”

            Finn nods, regarding him carefully, and Poe feels so kriffing _exposed_ all of the sudden, like Finn can see not through him but right _into_ him. He feels like he’s been lurching through hyperspace too long, like something in him is going to spark and then snap if he doesn’t get out of – of whatever this is.

            “Poe,” Finn says, taking a step closer. “I want –” He stops himself again, looks away.

            “It’s okay, buddy,” Poe says, mouth dry. He’s only vaguely aware of leaning in toward Finn, of Finn’s hand light on his arm. “Whatever it is, it’s –”

            “I want you to stay,” Finn interrupts, lifting his eyes to Poe’s. “I want you to –”

            Poe doesn’t remember later which of them moves first.  He remembers the exact pitch of the whisper birds singing somewhere above them, remembers the exact pale blue of the sky, remembers this pressure building and building and building until it’s agony in his chest, and Finn’s talking, and then he just _isn’t_ anymore –

            It’s not exactly the best kiss in the galaxy. They’re both clumsy with nerves, all misaligned, too desperate, but it knocks the breath out of him anyway, and Poe feels distinctly like he’s going to actually, literally _swoon_ when Finn lets go of him. (He doesn’t. He just – he sways. A little. For maybe a second.)

            “Sorry,” Finn says, “sorry, I just –”

            “No,” Poe says. “No, it’s – I’m –” He gives a helpless little laugh, although he’s not exactly sure what’s funny here, and steps closer again. “Can I –” But he’s not even sure what he’s asking.

            Finn’s eyes never leave his. For a disorienting moment he looks like he did on the Finalizer, all nerves and determination and courage mixed in, _stay calm, stay calm_. Except this Finn is – is so much older, somehow. Is looking straight into Poe’s soul and seeing exactly how calm he isn’t.

            “Yeah,” Finn says. “You can.”

            And this time Poe very consciously kisses him again, a whole lot slower. Finn’s hand comes up to Poe’s hair and Poe – Poe is pretty sure he could die right here and that’d be absolutely fine. He hasn’t felt this warm and light in a hundred years or maybe never at all and it’s like flying, it’s like flying with nowhere to be and nobody chasing you, and he’s already dreading the landing.

            Somehow he’s gotten one hand tangled in the collar of Finn’s shirt – Poe’s shirt, actually – by the time they part again, and he lets it fall slowly, trying to get his balance back, feel his feet back under him.

            “Is this,” Poe starts, but he’s interrupted by Finn pressing his lips back to Poe’s, quick and light. “Mmf,” he says, lightheaded, then holds up a hand between them. “Hang on, hold on, is this – are you okay with this?”

            Finn looks at him like he’s insane, which, fair enough. “Why else would I be doing it?”

            “Okay,” Poe says, because, also fair enough. “Okay, but I just...” He can’t stop this, this feeling exposed thing. It’s like he’s a walking open wound or something, aching all the time. “I really like you, buddy,” he says stupidly. Like he’s a twelve-year-old with a crush.

            “I got that impression,” Finn answers, half-smiling.

            Poe feels his ears go red, but he keeps talking, faster now. “So I don’t wanna just – I want to, uh, kriff.” This gets him a pretty puzzled look, so he swallows and tries again. He can already hear Jess laughing at him. “I mean, no offense, but I’m betting you’ve never – and I’m sort of –” He waves his hands helplessly. For kriff’s sake, when did he lose the ability to _speak?_

            “Jess said you were gonna say something like that,” Finn says thoughtfully, and Poe blinks.

            “She did?”

            “Yeah. With more words than that, though.”

            “When did Jess –”

            “When I asked her.”

            Poe stares dumbly. “When you...”

            “I asked her,” Finn says, nodding. “Because you were...acting weird. And I was – Rose sort of –” He looks embarrassed for a second, then clears his throat and straightens up his shoulders like he’s trying to be...professional. About this. Somehow. “I just had some stuff to figure out,” he says, and it sounds sort of like someone’s taught him that line.

            Poe is vaguely aware that he’s been standing stock still for the past thirty seconds. “So you asked Jess.”

            “Yeah.”

            “You asked...Jess?”

            Finn’s brow furrows, but he looks amused now. “Yes,” he says patiently.

            “Not Rey.”

            “No.”

            “Jess,” Poe repeats.

            “Right.”

            “Why did you...”

            “Because she’s your friend,” Finn says simply. “And you talk to her. More than me. I...” He shifts his feet. “Sort of heard you singing with her, even? And I just thought, if anybody would know...”

            “Know what?” Poe asks, because he can’t help himself. His voice sounds embarrassingly hoarse.

            Finn meets his eyes again, looking a million miles calmer than Poe feels. “If I was getting the right impression.”

            Poe blinks back at him for what feels like roughly half a century, until he finally gets his brain back enough to say, “You, uh. You were.”

            Finn tilts his head at Poe, looking like he’s trying very hard not to laugh. “I know.”

            “But I’m –”

            “Too old and decrepit for me,” Finn says.

            Poe manages a smile, because that’s definitely all Jess. “Yeah, that. And also –”

            “And I’m a pure and innocent hero of the Resistance while you’re a walking disaster leaving nothing but explosions in his wake.”

            Poe winces. “Okay, tell me you’re quoting Jess right now.”

            Finn smiles. “I’m quoting Jess right now.” He steps closer, and adds confidentially, “She also said you’re full of shit, and you wouldn’t know a good thing if it broke you out of a First Order torture cell and saved your life.”

            “Oh,” Poe says, with a weak laugh. “That’s –”

            Finn kisses him again, softer.

            “Really specific,” Poe finishes breathlessly. His heart is thumping hard in his chest, and he wants to just – to just let Finn guide them through this, really, because he’s doing a pretty damn good job of it so far.  

            But -- no, he has to be responsible, right? He has to be some level of...of something, so...he...

            He struggles to drag the words out. “Listen, I just – are you sure you’re –”

            “I’m okay,” Finn says, reaching out to push Poe’s hair away from his face, the warmth of his hand on Poe’s cheek making him shiver. He studies Poe. “Are you okay?”

            “Yeah,” Poe manages.

            Except he’s not, is he? He’s not okay. His head is spinning, and the songs dredged up some weird emotions he doesn’t know what to do with, and Finn is standing here kissing him, which is all he’s wanted since – since who knows, since forever, since before he was born probably, he just hadn’t known it till he saw Finn take off that helmet. And yet somehow he’s not okay. He should be, but he’s not, and he doesn’t know how to say it, because he wants this, he doesn’t want to lose this, he...

            “Hey,” Finn says, and Poe focuses on him, on Finn’s palm soft against his jawline, Finn’s worried expression, Finn’s fingertips brushing his ear. He shivers again, and Finn pulls away. “Hey, I’m sorry if I –”

            “No,” Poe says, reaching out to take Finn’s hand, lacing their fingers together. “No, no, don’t do that,” he says hurriedly. “I just, I’m...”

            Tired. So tired. All messed up by a couple of stupid songs.

            “You’re shaking,” Finn says, frowning.

            Poe winces. “I’m okay,” he says, and tries to pull his hand back, but Finn holds him fast. There’s a strange relief in that.

            “We could take a walk,” says Finn. And they could be back on the Falcon, Finn coming to his rescue again. _You wanna walk?_

            Or, yes, back on the Finalizer ( _this is a rescue)_ , Poe’s torn-up mind struggling to comprehend the fact that he’s not dead yet, that maybe he’s not going to die today at all.

            “We could,” he says. But he doesn’t move, not until Finn tugs them forward.  

*

            Poe doesn’t really keep track of where they’re walking _to_ , not until Finn stops them in a clearing by one of the old temples. Same one he broke his arm falling off of, if he’s remembering right. Finn sits down at the foot of the crumbling ruins, so Poe follows suit, and they’re quiet for a while.

            “Does she escape?” Finn asks eventually, and Poe casts him a puzzled look.

            “Does – who?”

            “The pilot. The pilot true, all in blue...”

            “Oh,” Poe says. “Oh, sure. If you want her to. It’s sorta up to you.”

             “I want her to.”

            “Okay, then yeah. There’s a daring rescue op. Right after the song ends.”

            “They should add that part,” says Finn very seriously. “‘And then she escaped and repaired her ship and flew off to live happily ever after.’ That should be the ending.”

            Poe laughs. “Might throw off the rhythm.”

            Finn smiles at him, and Poe notices the exhaustion in his face for the first time. Wonders what it is that’s keeping Finn up at night, feels a surge of guilt for not being around. _Kriffing hell, Dameron, it’s not all about you._

            “Maybe,” Finn says. “But that’s how it ends. If it’s up to me.” He hesitates, and then adds, “I was gonna run away.”

            Poe gazes back at him. “Yeah?” he says, because he has no idea what Finn’s talking about, but it seems like he’s waiting for an answer.

            “I was going to leave.” Finn searches Poe’s expression. “On the Raddus. Before. I thought I’d find Rey and we’d – go somewhere, be safe...”

            “Oh,” Poe says, his heart turning to something heavy and aching. “That’s...” But he doesn’t know what that is.

            “I’m sorry,” Finn tells him, low and urgent. “I thought the fleet was doomed, and Rey...and I knew you would never...” He shakes his head. “I thought it was pointless, in the beginning. Trying to fight the First Order.”

            It’s not an uncommon sentiment, so it really shouldn’t take Poe by surprise. But for some reason his breath catches. He swallows, and says, “You attacked Kylo Ren with a lightsaber.”

            Finn rubs at his shoulder self-consciously, fingers brushing just about where his scar must end. Poe had been in the room when they’d dressed the wound, had glimpsed it again later when he’d helped Finn out of the bacta suit and into Poe’s old clothes. It was sort of hard to look away from.

            “I did,” Finn says, like he can’t quite believe it either. “But that was for Rey, you know? When I woke up, I thought – I didn’t think there was a chance.”

            “And then you tried to fly straight into a cannon.” Because Poe can’t seem to let that one go. “That’s one hell of a turnaround, buddy.”

            Finn shifts uncomfortably. “Yeah, well,” he says. “I just – something clicked, I guess. I realized...I think I just realized that it matters. What we do. What we build. Even if it’s small. It matters.” He raises his eyes to Poe’s. “I know that sounds stupid. And I think you knew that already. But I didn’t.”

            Poe swallows. “Yeah, you did,” he says, rougher than he’d meant to. “Because you –” _You saved me. You_ saved _me. You keep doing that._ “You wouldn’t be here, if you didn’t.”

            Finn doesn’t reply for a moment, looking back toward the ranch. Then he studies Poe and says, “I want to kiss you again.”

            Poe studies him right back, ignoring the rush of heat to his face. “You could do that,” he says, much calmer than he feels.

            Finn’s eyes narrow. “You’re okay?”

            He thinks about it. Focuses on his own beating heart, fast but steady. His shallow breath. The home-but-homesick feeling in his chest that stung the moment they landed and hasn’t yet gone away.

            “I’m okay,” he decides.

            “Good,” Finn breathes, all relief, and kisses him like he’d been waiting all along for the go ahead.

             And this time Poe registers every single detail, every sparking nerve. He files it all away to hold onto later, the next time he’s alone and afraid and he thinks he’s going to die. Because that’ll come again, he’s sure, but for now –

              _It matters_ , he thinks fiercely. _It matters._

*

            The General finds him retouching the A-wing’s paint the next day, working with a kind of renewed enthusiasm. They’re waiting on those parts still, but he’s decided he’s going to test some of the controls again anyway, mess around with the comms, whatever he can get to work without actually getting the thing off the ground. And then he’ll meet Finn for a late lunch, they’d decided, and maybe he’ll get kissed again, if he’s lucky, and maybe –

            “I heard you play yesterday,” General Organa says, and Poe looks over his shoulder to find her watching him, silhouetted in the doorway.

            “You – oh,” he says, turning around and dropping his paintbrush in the bucket, accidentally splattering red paint on BB-8 in the process. “Oh, kriff, sorry buddy,” he adds, and kneels down to mop the paint off his indignantly whirring droid. “How’d you – _sorry_ , BeeBee, I really am – how’d you, uh, hear that? Ma’am?”

            “Just happened to be walking by,” Leia says, stepping further into the shed, and when he glances her way she looks faintly amused. “‘Rebel Heart’ was an interesting choice.”

            “Rose Tico’s,” Poe says, shrugging. He wipes off the last of the paint, patting BB-8 on the head. “There ya go,” he adds, straightening up, and BB-8 chirps at him in stern admonishment.

            “Hm,” Leia says. “And ‘Pilot True’?”

             “Mine.”

            “Of course.”

            Poe feels himself flush for some reason. “Finn didn’t know any of those songs, you know?” he adds, because now she’s giving him this knowing look and he’s never been able to do anything but babble in the face of that.

            Leia raises a brow. “Yes, I would imagine they leave old rebel songs out of stormtrooper training.”

            “No, I know, but...” Poe pauses, swiping a hand through his hair. “I just...I forget...sometimes. He knows so much. He’s so smart, and brave, and I forget...I forget he wasn’t always here.”

            Leia gazes at him thoughtfully for so long that he starts to get twitchy, and he’s about to ask her if he has some paint on his face when she finally speaks. “Have you told him this?” she asks.

            “Um,” says Poe. “Which part?”

            She smiles at him almost pityingly. “The part, Commander, where you’re entirely infatuated.”

             Poe gapes at her for a second. “ _General_ ,” he says. “I’m not –”

            “Poe, please,” Leia says, holding up a hand. “Let’s not. Have you told him?”

            He shifts his feet, biting at his lip. It still feels bruised. “I, uh. I think he knows.”

            “You should make sure of that,” Leia advises, her tone stern as ever, but when Poe glances up she just looks wistful. “Trust me on this.”

            Poe nods. He hesitates, then adds, “Did you decide yet? On a request?”

            Leia considers him (he’s starting to think he really does have paint on his face). “Play a little louder next time,” she says at last. “That’s my request.”

            Poe grins.

           “You know,” he says, “I think I can manage that.”


End file.
